"Capital" is generally used to describe an asset owned by an individual as wealth. The word can denote a sum of money to be invested, the investment itself (e.g, a financial instrument such as a bond, or stocks) representing titles to means of production, or the physical means of production themselves. More generally the term is used to denote any asset of whatever kind which can be used as a source of income, even if only potentially; thus a house could be part of an individual's capital, as could also specialized training enabling a higher income to be earned (human capital). In general, then, capital refers to assets which can generate an income stream for its owner. Two corollaries of this understanding are, first, that it applies to every sort of society, in the past, in the present and in the future, and is specific to none; and second, that it posits the possibility that inanimate objects are productive in the sense of generating an income stream. The Marxist concept of capital is based on a denial of these two corollaries. Capital is something which in its generality is quite specific to capitalism; while capital predates capitalism, in capitalist society the production of capital predominates, and dominates every other sort of production. Capital cannot be understood apart from capitalist relations of production; indeed, capital is not a thing at all, but a social relation which appears in the form of a thing. To be sure, capital is about money-making, but the assets which "make" money embody a particular relation between those who have money and those who do not, such that not only is money "made," but also the private property relations which engender such a process are themselves continually reproduced. (Slighted adapted from DMT 60).
All human societies must produce their own material conditions of existence. The commodity is the form products take when this production is organized through exchange. In such a system products once produced are the property of particular agents who have the power to dispose of them to other agents. Agents who own different products confront each other in a process of bargaining through which they exchange the products. In exchange a definite quantity of one product changes places with a definite quantity of another. The commodity, then, has two powers: first, it can satisfy some human want, that is, it has what Adam Smith calls use value; second, it has the power to command other commodities in exchange, a power of exchangeability that Marx calls value. Because commodities exchange with each other in definite quantitative proportions each commodity can be thought of as containing a certain amount of value. The whole mass of commodities produced in a period can be seen as a homogeneous mass of value, although looked at in another way it is a heterogeneous collection of different and incomparable use values. As values commodities are qualitatively equal and differ only quantitatively in the amount of value they contain. As use values commodities are qualitatively different, since each product is specific and cannot be compared with another. The labor theory of value analyses this mass of value as the form the total social labor expended takes in a commodity-producing system. The labor that produces commodities can thus be thought of either concretely, as labor of a particular kind which produces a particular use value (in the way that weaving is a particular kind of labor that produces cloth), or abstractly, as being the source of value in general, as abstract labor (DMT 86).
An alphabetical index of all the words in a text or corpus of texts, showing every contextual occurrence of a word (AHD 306).
Consumption of products of human labor (use-values) is the way in which human beings maintain and reproduce themselves both as individuals and as social individuals, i.e. both in the physical-mental sense (as human beings with a given personality) and in a concrete social-historical framework (as members of a given social formation, in a specific historical period). Under capitalism, i.e. generalized commodity production ("market economy"), consumption takes essentially the form of consumption of commodities, the two main exceptions being consumption of goods produced inside the household and consumption under subsistence farming. Consumption is subdivided into two large categories: ~productive consumption~, which includes both consumption of consumer goods by producers, and consumption of means of production in the productive process; and ~unproductive consumption~, which includes all consumption of goods which do not enter the reproduction process, do not contribute to the next cycle of production. Unproductive consumption comprises essentially consumption of consumer goods by non-productive classes (the ruling class, unproductive labor, etc.), and consumption of both consumer goods and investment goods by the non-productive sectors of the state (the military and the state administration sector) (DMT 92).
A section of a book being published in installments, usually bound together later (Random House Dictionary 516). The Middle English Dictionary is published in fascicles; some letters extend over four or five fascicles. The fascicles of the Dictionary of Old English (DOE) are appearing only in microfiche format, one letter at a time.
A class, group, or kind of individuals with common attributes (American Heritage Dictionary 554).
Gender is the study of sexual difference. As a grammatical category, gender is a system of classifying nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter (without regard to the relation of the noun to biological sex). In contemporary criticism, gender refers to a range of issues seeking to differentiate the sexes in more ways than the apparently objective distinctions of the biological male and female. Elaine Showalter writes that gender refers to three different issues: 1) a grammatical category in all language use in which the norm is masculine (e.g., poet) and the feminine must be marked by some variant (e.g., poetess); 2) "the social, cultural, and psychological meaning imposed upon biological sexual identity"; 3) talk about both women and men, "marking a shift from the woman-centered investigations" of feminist criticism of the 1970's. (Showalter, ed. Speaking of Gender. New York, 1989. 1-3.
From the Greek "image-writing"; essentially, the subject matter of an image and its meaning. There are several modern methods of analyzing iconography, the most fundamental of which is the three-phase process outlined by Erwin Panofsky. In Panofsky's first phase, objects and motifs are simply identified without interpretation, though some knowledge of the history of style is necessary in order to determine whether, for example, the smaller of two figures is meant to be seen as behind the larger figure or as a less important component of the composition. For the second phase, literary sources and conventions of the period are used to explain what the picture conveyed to the contemporary viewer: for example, a man with curly white hair carrying keys is, in the medieval period, almost certainly St. Peter. The final phase, which Panofsky called "iconology," is concerned with what the object reveals about the society that produced it and how it is symptomatic of that culture. A second method of iconographical analysis, derived from philology and most fully elaborated by Kurt Weitzmann, emphasizes the morphological sources of the subject matter in an attempt to reconstruct lost originals. If such sources can be identified and described, not only may destroyed images be "restored" but by identifying the changes made in the surviving picture, it becomes possible to analyze the changing role of a given subject matter through time. A third method, influenced by anthropology and the social sciences, stresses the function of a work, why it was made, and how it reflects or reacts against the culture that generated it. This method, sometimes termed "contextual," often incorporates elements from the earlier two in order to present a balanced analysis of the work (DMA 404-5).
Among the two earliest examples of the use of labor in English are "begin a laboure... and make a toure" and "quit o labur, and o soru" (both c. 1300). These two senses, of work and of pain or trouble, were already closely associated in labor, (Old French), and laborem, (Latin); the root word is uncertain but may be related to slipping or staggering under a burden. As a verb labor had a common sense of ploughing or working the land, but it was also extended to other kinds of manual work and to any kind of difficult effort. A laborer was primarily a manual worker: "a wreched laborer that lyveth by hys hond" (c. 1325). The sense of labor as pain was applied to childbirth from the sixteenth century. The general sense of hard work and difficulty was well summed up in Milton's Paradise Lost (see LINK01 in the SEAFARER Labor Module). From the seventeenth century, except in the special use for childbirth, labor gradually lost its habitual association with pain, though the general and applied senses of difficulty were still strong. The sense of labor as a general social activity came through more clearly, and with a more distinct sense of abstraction. But the most important change was the introduction of labor as a term in political economy: at first in an existing general sense, "the annual labour of every nation" (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Introduction) but then as a measurable and calculable component: "Labour...is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities" (I, i). Where labor, in its most general use, had meant all productive work, it now came to mean that element of production which in combination with capital and materials produced commodities. These modern developments have changed the old senses of labor. The special use in childbirth has continued, but otherwise the word is not often used outside its specific modern contexts. ~work~, with all its difficulties, has taken over almost all other general senses . This discussion is adapted from Raymond Williams, Keywords 176-9.
The phrase "aristocracy of labour," as Hobsbawm (1964) notes, "seems to have been used from the middle of the nineteenth century at least to describe certain distinctive upper strata of the working class" (272). Marx and Engels, in one of their political reviews, noted that the Chartist movement had split into two factions, one revolutionary, to which "the mass of workers living in real proletarian conditions belong," the other reformist, comprising "the petty-bourgeois members and the labour aristocracy." Subsequently, Lenin also associated reformism in the labor movement with the labor aristocracy; in particular, in his writings during the first world war he argued that "certain strata of the working class (the bureaucracy in the labour movement and the labour aristocracy...), as well as petty bourgeois fellow-travellers...served as the main social support of these tendencies" to opportunism and reformism (Collected Works, Vol. 21. 161). Max Adler, in a study of the working class in relation to fascism (1933), attributed to the labor aristocracy, as "a numerically large privileged stratum", which "has separated itself profoundly from the rest of the proletariat," responsibility for the diffusion of a conservative ideology. His analysis ultimately merges the notion of a labor aristocracy with that of ~embourgeoisement~ (which Engels had already introduced in letters of the 1880s and 1890s), and thus points to more recent debates. Hobsbawm concluded that the labor aristocracy in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century comprised about 15 percent of the working class, and went on to consider changes in the twentieth century, noting particularly the "new labour aristocracy" of white collar and technical workers. This suggests that the labor aristocracy is now a less significant phenomenon in present-day capitalist societies than the more general changes in the position of the working class and the growth of the new middle class. (Adapted from DMT 265).
Throughout the mature Marx's economic works the idea that a contradiction between forces and relations of production underlies the dynamic of the capitalist mode of production is present. More generally, such a contradiction accounts for history existing as a succession of modes of production, since it leads to the necessary collapse of one mode and its supersession by another. And the couple, forces/relations of production, in any mode of production underlies the whole society's processes, not just the economic ones. The connection between them and the social structure was stated in some of Marx's most succinct sentences. The power of the contradiction between relations and the forces to act as the motor of history is also stated in the same place: "at a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production . . . within which they have been at work hitherto"; and "from forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters," thereby initiating social revolution. The productive forces were conceived by Marx as including means of production and labor power. Their development, therefore, encompasses such historical phenomena as the development of machinery, changes in the labor process, the opening up of new sources of energy, and the education of the proletariat. There remain, however, several elements whose definition is disputed. Some writers have included science itself as a productive force (not just the changes in means of production that result). Relations of production are constituted by the economic ownership of productive forces; under capitalism the most fundamental of these relations is the bourgeoisie's ownership of means of production while the proletariat owns only its labor power. Economic ownership is different from legal ownership for it relates to the control of the productive forces. In a legal sense the workers with rights in a pension fund may be said to own the shares of the companies in which the pension fund invests and thus to be, indirectly, legal owners of their means of production (although even this interpretation of the legal position is open to criticism on the grounds that share ownership is a legal title to revenue rather than to means of production); but if so, they are certainly not in control of those means of production and hence have no economic ownership (DMT 178).
The first Christian virgins and ascetics followed the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in their manner of life, with no fixed rule. Soon an order of life was found to be necessary. Without a plan for daily life, an appointed time for devotions and occupations, laxity was inevitable. Virgins wandered about; ascetics became a prey to acedia. A rule of life was seen to be the cure. In the third century, St. Cyprian drew up regulations for the daily life of virgins. In the fourth century, the solitaries of Egypt began to gather around leaders who could instruct them in the way of perfection. St. Pachomius drew up the first rule for monastic life and it was the first of a long series. All religious communities today have rules. The need for a rule of life is experienced by anyone who seriously aims at spiritual perfection. This applies also to those who live outside monasteries and convents, priests and lay people. To achieve sanctity, a good use of time is necessary in order to make the most of the opportunities of grace that come into one's life. Hence a definite program is required. If prepared under the guidance of a spiritual director, this ensures a spirit of obedience to the Holy Spirit and saves one from following personal whims in the pursuit of spiritual perfection. A useful rule of life must be firm and definite in order to support the will. It should fix, at least in principle, the time and place for performing spiritual exercises, and also the duties of one's state. Yet it should have sufficient elasticity to be adaptable to the needs indicated by charity and prudence. Thus, a wise rule of life gives to the various duties their proper relative importance, so that one's duties to God and neighbor are properly fulfilled (NCE 710).
If in the world of politics Marxism is associated with the struggle for communism, in its theory it is identified with the fundamentally determining role played by production. Each society is characterized by a definite configuration of socially and historically constituted forces and relations of production which constitute the basis upon which other economic and social relations rest. "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economical structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general" (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface). Continuing this famous passage Marx goes on to suggest that the passage from one mode of production to another is to be understood on the basis of the determining role played by production. Yet, equally important, Marx qualified these observations as "the general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies." This is not to suggest that Marx considered any revision of his conclusions to be likely, but that his analysis depended upon further logical and historical investigation. The materialist conception of history is not to be considered as some ready made formula for revealing the secrets of social organization and development (DMT 395-6).
Thane originally meant "servant" in Anglo-Saxon, but it came to replace gesith as the term for "noble." It is doubtful if this change in words reflected any social difference. As early as the sixth century, Anglo-Saxon society contained an elaborate set of gradations. The gesith was a noble warrior, and he was distinguished from lesser freemen by a higher wergild and the ability to swear stronger oaths. Members of this class probably held land, at least as members of a family; but many of them depended on the kings for maintenance either as household warriors or as landed retainers. The kings were supported by an elaborate system of royal tribute consisting of food renders and works that lay upon the land, and they rewarded their warriors by loaning them the right to receive the tribute from particular villages. Once a gesith had loanland, he still served the king as a warrior, and he probably also had ministerial responsibilities for overseeing the delivery of the tribute. He could also now marry and have a family. When he died, the land returned to the king. This type of quasi-ministerial thanage survived in parts of Northumberland and eastern Scotland as late as the twelfth century, but in the south the nature of the institution changed. In the late eighth century, kings began to give thanes hereditary possession of loanland. Such grants were called bookland, and they ended a king's right to receive the old tribute from the booked land. Thanks to such grants, the thanage became a landed nobility over the course of the ninth and tenth centuries. It is not clear why kings made such grants, but the grants did not end royal rights entirely because the kings imposed new or reformulated burdens on the land and the obligation to serve in the army and repair bridges and fortifications (DMA 8).
Since the commodity is a product which is exchanged, it appears as the union of two different aspects: its usefulness to some agent, which is what permits the commodity to enter into exchange at all; and its power to command certain quantities of other commodities in exchange. The first aspect the classical political economists called use value, the second, exchange value. Marx emphasizes the fact that while use value is a necessary condition for a product to enter into exchange and hence to have an exchange value (no one will exchange a product useful to someone for a product of no use to anyone) the use value of the commodity bears no systematic quantitative relation to its exchange value, which is a reflection of the conditions of the commodity's production. He further argues that the proper object of study of political economy is the laws governing the production and movement of exchange value, or to put it more rigorously, the laws governing value, the inherent property of the commodities which appears as exchange value (Capital 1, Ch. 1). It is important to recognize that use value differentiates itself as a concept in human consciousness as a result of the development of the commodity form of production. Without commodity exchange the usefulness of products in general is a fact self-evident and thus invisible to producers and users. Only with the emergence of commodity relations do the opposition of usefulness and exchangeability and the resulting contradictions and puzzles of commodity-organized life become an object of speculation and investigation. It is also important to recognize that the specific usefulness of products depends on the social relations and development of forces of production in any given society. Structural steel has no use value for nomadic cattleherders (DMT 504).
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